Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

Join Me in Southborough This Thursday

If you live in or near Southborough, Massachusetts, you might be interested in attending a meeting of the Genealogy Club this Thursday evening, November 19. I will be the guest speaker at this month's meeting and will be talking about "Google for Genealogists." I hope to show a few tricks for using everyone's favorite search engine.

ITV's Sale of Friends Reunited Could Breach Competition Law

According to the Times Online, ITV was told today that it might not be allowed to sell Friends Reunited, even for a £145 million loss.

The U.K. Office of Fair Trading (OFT) ruled that ITV’s attempt to sell Friends for £25 million to the owner of two genealogy sites could breach competition law.

Registration for 2010 NGS Family History Conference Now Open

The 2010 National Genealogical Society's Family History Conference will be held at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. Mark your calendars for 28 April–1 May 2010. That may seem like a long time away but it will be here before you know it. Registration opened today.

Upcoming Events

The Upcoming Events section of this newsletter is published as a newsletter article once per month, usually in the first week of the month. You can also view the latest list of events at any time by clicking on "Upcoming Events" in the Navigation menu near the upper right corner of the page at http://www.eogn.com.

This month's list is the longest and most detailed list I have ever posted!

Each event is listed with the name, location and dates. Click on the name to see the details, including a link to the event's web page or to an e-mail address of someone who will provide still more information. The EOGN list of Upcoming Events is also available as an RSS newsfeed at http://www.trumba.com/calendars/eogns_calendar.rss.

Hello from the Mid-Atlantic Family History Conference 2009

I just spent a delightful day in New Jersey. Judging from the conversations I had, a few hundred other genealogists also enjoyed the day. We all attended the one-day Mid-Atlantic Family History Conference 2009 in Cherry Hill.

I have written in the past about some of the disappointments I have had at national conferences with their high expenses and the tendency to cram in hundreds of presentations in a limited amount of time. I would offer the Mid-Atlantic Family History Conference as an example of "how to do it right." Luckily, there are hundreds of other local and regional genealogy conferences that operate on similar models, and most of them also "do it right."

Mid-Atlantic Family History Conference 2009

If you can be in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, this Saturday, you might enjoy attending an all-day genealogy seminar. This seminar will include more than 20 classes and presentations on a whole range of subjects, from beginners’ to advanced topics. The all-day seminar also includes a photograph scanning opportunity for attendees, so bring your old family photos! The seminar also includes a "brick wall session," door prizes from Ancestry.com and Footnote.com, and an exhibit hall with local and regional organizations providing free information and literature.

I will be at the seminar as I have the honor of being one of the presenters. I will be joined by many other presenters: Thilo C. Agthe, Beth Bensman, Harry Benson, Gail Benson, Bernie Cedar, Deborah Large Fox, Martine Green, Michael Hait, David Haugaard, Robert House, Sandra M. Hewlett, Shamele Jordon, Catherine Medich, Trish Mirarchi, Floyd Riley, Stephen Schecter, and Alice Young. That's quite a list of speakers!

Black Genealogical Groups to Converge on Fort Wayne

Fort Wayne, Indiana will host the first-ever joint conference of African-American historical and genealogical groups. Beginning Oct. 29, more than 400 black genealogists will attend a three-day International Black Genealogy conference at the Allen County Public Library to learn more about searching for their family histories.

Upcoming Events

The Upcoming Events section of this newsletter is published as a newsletter article once per month, usually in the first week of the month. You can also view the latest list of events at any time by clicking on "Upcoming Events" in the Navigation menu near the upper right corner of the page at http://www.eogn.com.

Each event is listed with the name, location and dates. Click on the name to see the details, including a link to the event's web page or to an e-mail address of someone who will provide still more information. The EOGN list of Upcoming Events is also available as an RSS newsfeed at http://www.trumba.com/calendars/eogns_calendar.rss.

NERGC Call for Papers Springfield 2011

The following announcement was written by the New England Regional Genealogical Consortium:

11th New England Regional Genealogical Conference
Exploring New Paths to Your Roots
6-10 April 2011

Sheraton Springfield Monarch Place and Springfield Marriott
Springfield, Massachusetts

Lecture proposals are now being accepted for the 11th New England Regional Genealogical Conference to be held 6-10 April 2011 in Springfield, Massachusetts. The deadline for submission of proposals is 1 March 2010. Lecture proposals may be submitted at any time prior to that date by email or regular mail to the addresses listed below.

Call for Papers - 2010 BYU Computerized Genealogy Conference

The following announcement was written by the organizers of the 2010 Brigham Young University Computerized Genealogy Conference:

Lecture proposals are now being accepted for the 2010 Brigham Young University Computerized Genealogy Conference, which will be held Friday, 12 March, and Saturday, 13 March 2010, at the Conference Center, BYU campus, Provo, Utah. Each lecture period will be 60 minutes, including questions and answers.

Report from FGS in Little Rock

This message is being written in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel in Little Rock, Arkansas. This is the hotel attached to the Little Rock Convention Center, site of the 2009 conference of the Federation of Genealogical Societies, co-sponsored by the Arkansas Genealogical Society. It is now the morning of the third day of this four-day conference and I must say that it has been a successful event so far.

StoryCorps at the FGS Conference

The following announcement was written by StoryCorps:

StoryCorps, an independent nonprofit project whose mission is to honor and celebrate one another’s lives through listening, is coming to 2009 Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference in Little Rock, Arkansas on September 2-4. 

Ancestry.com to Provide High-Speed Scanners at FGS Conference in Little Rock

The following announcement was written by Ancestry.com:

Ancestry.com is excited to provide FGS conference attendees the opportunity to have their family records scanned, for free, on high–speed scanners.

The scanners will be available for up to 15-minute scanning sessions on Thursday, September 3, through Saturday, September 5, during the exhibit hall hours.

FGS Conference Syllabus is now Online for Registrants

The following announcement was written by the Federation of Genealogical Societies:

Jan Davenport, Chair of the 2009 Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference, announces that the conference syllabus is now online for registrants! If you are registered for the conference, you can view, download and print the syllabus materials for any of the sessions before you even leave home! (At the conference, all registrants will receive a CD with the complete syllabus.)

Wholly Genes Genealogy Conference and "Land Cruise" - 26-30 August, 2009

One event being held in a few weeks is a genealogy conference that has a most unusual name: the Genealogy Conference and "Land Cruise." This five-day genealogy conference will be held in rural Orkney Springs, Virginia, but will attract attendees from all over the U.S. Indeed, it will be a national event but with much lower costs than most other major conferences which are typically held in downtown (expensive) cities.

Wholly Genes is well known in genealogy circles as the producers of The Master Genealogist, a top-of-the-line program for Windows. The company also produces Family Tree SuperTools, an add-on product that provides additional capabilities to Family Tree Maker, Personal Ancestral File, Legacy, and other genealogy programs. Finally, Wholly Genes also produces hundreds of CD-ROM disks containing classic genealogy reference books. Wholly Genes has held four annual genealogy cruises with internationally-known speakers and exotic ports of call in sun-drenched tropical islands or to Mexico.

This year, the company decided to switch from tropical cruises to a somewhat more traditional genealogy conference at a rural "retreat." This year's event will again feature well-known speakers, good food, and interesting scenery; but, the accommodations and surroundings will be radically different: the Shrine Mont Conference Center in historic Orkney Springs, Virginia, in the historic Shenandoah Valley.

There is one side benefit that I suspect all the attendees will appreciate: this year's seminars will be offered at much lower costs than attending similar seminars on a cruise ship.

Bloggers' Forum at FGS Conference

The following was written by the Federation of Genealogical Societies:

Open Forum: Blogging, Social Networking, and Podcasting

Federation of Genealogical Societies 2009 Conference
Wednesday, September 2, 2009 from 5:00-6:00 PM
Statehouse Convention Center, Governor’s Hall IV

The Federation of Genealogical Societies is pleased to host an open forum for everyone interested in meeting, networking, and discussing blogging, social networks, and podcasting. Everyone is invited, beginner to experienced!

"Open the Door & Here are the People" - the Next Major British National Conference to be held in Nottingham

The following article was written by Maggie Loughran. Please note the rather significant special offer for readers of this newsletter mentioned near the end of the article.

It was way back in 1991 that I attended my first British genealogy conference – organised by my local genealogy society.  I was still wet behind the ears – as far as genealogy was concerned anyway and long before genealogy became my profession.

Nevertheless I immediately saw the value of attending such events.  Attending a conference gives you the opportunity to meet and interact with like-minded people, who share your enthusiasm for the past.  Many established researchers attending such events will be only too happy to give a helping hand to those just starting their research, those who have hit a brick wall or those just wishing to add shoots to their roots.

Salt Lake Family History Expo Teaches "Tech to Trace Your Roots"

The following is part of an announcement written by Family History Expos:

Family historians (and those even mildly interested in researching their roots) can learn all about the latest techniques and technology at the Salt Lake City, Utah Family History Expo, Aug. 28 and 29.

FGS Conference in Little Rock

The following was written by the (U.S.) Federation of Genealogical Societies:

Only a month left till genealogists descend on Little Rock!

In just a month, genealogists from all over the United States and beyond will be getting together in Little Rock for four full days of learning more about genealogy, finding cousins, seeing how much is online, seeing how much is not online, figuring out how to get the most out of records, determining what archives or libraries have the answers, helping your genealogy society, and spending some money in the large Exhibit Hall. Don’t let this event pass you by. The Arkansas Genealogical Society is the host for this event which is the annual conference of the Federation of Genealogical Societies. You will be hearing about this event for years to come and will feel sad if you weren’t a part of it.

Scots from Across the World Attend Genealogy Festival

Scots from all over the world joined their native cousins for the opening day of Strathclyde University's International Genealogy Festival. The launch was attended by ex-pats from Australia, America, Canada and South Africa and a host of locals, all eager to learn more about their family roots.